Treffpunkt, Schnittpunkt, Wendepunkt. Zur politischen und musischen Symbolik des Areals der augusteischen Meta Sudans

Abstract

Excavations conducted in the Valle del Colosseo in Rome over the past years have shown that the Flavian fountain Meta Sudans replaced a similar Augustan fountain. The iconography of this fountain shows that it was a victory monument deliberately positioned on the via triumphalis and at the intersection of Augustan regiones. The article investigates how people engaged with, transformed, and perceived the area around the fountain. Besides passers-by and local residents, the epigraphically well-attested collegium of the aenatores tibicines liticines cornicines Romani is of particular significance here, as it resided in a sanctuary on the slope of the Palatine that bordered onto this area. Literary references to the area in Seneca and Propertius show that the square was culturally mainly associated with musicians but also with the cultic function of the tubicines and the likewise neighbouring tibicines. Propertius attempts to harness these associations for his specific engagement with the expectations faced by ‹Augustan› poetry by casting the Meta Sudans as a place of encounter between Dionysian music and Apollonian motifs.